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US set to take on EU Big 3 over Islamic Regime Nuclear Prog.

 
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MinaIsCool
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PostPosted: Thu Nov 13, 2003 9:23 am    Post subject: US set to take on EU Big 3 over Islamic Regime Nuclear Prog. Reply with quote

http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/reuters11-11-032218.asp?reg=MIDEAST

US set to take on EU Big 3 over Iran nuke programme

VIENNA, Nov. 11 — A U.N. report that Iran dabbled in activities linked to atom bomb-making has set the stage for a clash next week between Washington and three European states over Tehran's possible punishment, diplomats said on Tuesday.

The United States has long accused Iran of using a civilian nuclear energy programme as a front to build a bomb, but will have a tough fight getting France, Germany and Britain to toe its line at a November 20 meeting of the board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Washington wants the IAEA board to pass a resolution to report Iran to the U.N. Security Council, a move which could lead to sanctions against Tehran.

But the foreign ministers of France, Germany and Britain did a deal with Iran on October 21 under which Tehran was to suspend its uranium enrichment programme and sign a protocol permitting more intrusive, short-notice IAEA inspections.

On Monday, Tehran announced it had fulfilled its side of the bargain, although the European Union said on Tuesday it wanted to see ''deeds as well as the words.''

Nevertheless, diplomats said they believed France, Germany and Britain were now bound not to support a U.S.-backed resolution that Iran had failed to comply with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

''Some Europeans (on the IAEA board) agree with the U.S., but they will have a very hard time convincing the three Europeans to support a resolution of non-compliance,'' one diplomat said.

POSSIBLE SANCTIONS

In a confidential report on Monday on U.N. inspections in Iran, the IAEA said it had found no proof of an atomic weapons programme in Iran, but said Tehran had covertly engaged in activities often associated with nuclear bombs.

''Iran has admitted that it produced small amounts of low enriched uranium...and that it had failed to report a large number of conversion, fabrication and irradiation activities involving nuclear material, including the separation of a small amount of plutonium,'' the IAEA report said.

Iran denies it wants weapons and says it was forced to hide some nuclear activities because of decades of illegal sanctions.

One Western diplomat said France, Britain and Germany had seized on one part of the report to back their approach.

This stated: ''To date there is no evidence that (Iran's) previously undeclared nuclear material and activities referred to above were related to a nuclear weapons programme.

''However, given Iran's past pattern of concealment, it will take some time before the agency is able to conclude that Iran's nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes.''

Several Western diplomats said there was more than enough evidence in the Iran report to support a non-compliance finding, which would require the board to notify the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.

A senior Western diplomat also questioned the IAEA's ability to say there was no evidence of a weapons programme yet, given the discovery of numerous activities usually related to bombs.

''We may have seen the tip of the iceberg or the bottom of the iceberg,'' he said. ''But It's very possible that there may be part of the iceberg somewhere else.''

Iran's ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Akbar Salehi, told Iranian state television Iran's plutonium production and uranium enrichment referred to in the report were ''insignificant and...at the level of gram and microgram.''

But the senior diplomat dismissed Salehi's view.
''The U.S., the U.K., France, India and Pakistan all started out with laboratory scale activities,'' the diplomat said. ''That was their weapons programme until they set one off in the desert or on an island.''
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